Mentorship is at the heart of what we do at OpenClassrooms. It’s one of our strengths that students value the most during their studies and that’s why we’ve decided to highlight our mentor community more and introduce to you these experts that guide our students towards success!

We’ve interviewed Josh Fluke, who has been a mentor with us for over 9 months now. He’s helped a lot of students, validated a lot of projects but most importantly has learned a great deal about what makes someone a great mentor.

Here are Josh’s answers to our questions:

How did you become a mentor?

I’ve always had a passion for helping others. In this case, it was because of my experience making web development related youtube videos that helped me land this job. I found OpenClassrooms and really liked their model and their curriculum – so I applied and I have been mentoring here about 9 months now.

Why do you feel like sharing your knowledge? What do you like most about it?

I learned how to code a few years ago in a similar program OpenClassrooms offers. I know the struggles and how it can sometimes be compared to ‘drinking from a firehose’ because of the amount of information there is to learn. I can relate to students and I’m familiar with common hang-ups. I enjoy giving back and sharing what I know because I feel like if I can become a programmer, then so can anyone.

In what way does this activity complement your current work?

It has improved my knowledge at my job and has built expertise in the areas I teach. There’s a phrase – you don’t really know something until you can teach it, and that is totally true. In addition to that, it has allowed me to explain technical concepts to people of all expertise, technical and non-technical alike.

What advice would you give someone who would like to become a mentor?

Be flexible. Some students learn by building something from scratch. Some students learn by taking something complete, breaking it apart and reverse engineering it. Some students need space and time to learn, and others work better under pressure. Get to know your student, but stick to what you know will benefit them in the long run.

Editor’s comment: do you want to become a mentor on OpenClassrooms? Check out our recruitment page and apply there: http://mentor-en.jobs.openclassrooms.com/

How would you explain mentorship at OpenClassrooms?

Mentorship is a rewarding challenge that takes many different forms. Every student learns their own unique way and sometimes it can take longer than others to explain concepts so that they understand, but once the student has that moment when it ‘clicks’ there is no greater feeling.

If you had to describe mentorship in one word, what would it be?

Passion

Josh Fluke has helped OpenClassrooms and a lot over the last 9 months and we’re thankful to have him as part of the mentor community. If you’d like to check out his videos, you can subscribe to his YouTube channel here or even follow him on Twitter here.

Josh also interviewed one of our graduates, Stephanie Zerpa, where they talk about OpenClassrooms, the learning process and the mentorship:

OpenClassrooms is the leading online education platform with over 3 million users monthly. It offers free courses as well as internationally recognized programs in tech and design. You can find more information here.